Harper’s Conservatives slide behind NDP in national poll

The federal New Democrats are leading in voting intention across the country.

A new poll from EKOS and iPolitics shows the NDP sitting at 32.4 per cent nationally. The Conservatives sit second, having slipped to 29.3 per cent support, followed by the Liberals at 19.2 per cent.

While the jump to first place is a big one for the NDP, the real story is not so much its progress, but the decline of Conservative party support.

“The major notable factor here is a pretty alarming decline for the government, decline in support,” EKOS president Frank Graves said. “They’ve lost over 11 points of support and to see a government that secured a majority under 30 points one year later, I think is pretty well unprecedented.”

While the numbers look good for the NDP overall, Graves cautioned that its support might be “by virtue of the decline of the Conservatives.”

“I would stress it’s not much different from the very good result [the NDP] got in the last election,” he said. “What’s really different here is a majority government under 30 points a year out and with evidence that they may in fact be poorly poised to weather any further ethics storms or any other missteps.”

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Crucially for the government are the numbers revealing how Canadians feel about the direction in which it is heading, Graves pointed out. Only about a third (34.8 per cent) of Canadians thinks the government is moving in the right direction, while over half (55.2 per cent) believe the government is moving in the wrong direction.

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Canadians are also showing signs of losing confidence in the direction of the country. Only 44.5 per cent of those polled said they felt Canada was moving in the right direction, while almost the same (43.8 per cent) feel it’s moving in the wrong direction.

Those numbers are “really lousy leading indicators,” Graves said, and could also be “quite meaningful.”

“Typically those numbers should be much higher, particularly this early in an administration,” he said.

Graves speculated that the decline in satisfaction with the direction of the government could be reflective of its style of governance combined with a lengthening list of ethical questions surrounding it, such as those involving robo-calls made prior to the last election or, more recently, some surrounding MP Dean Del Mastro’s financial statements from the 2008 election.

If that continues, it could mean real problems for the Conservative government, he said.

“The question now becomes, if you have that little political capital left to expend – you’re at 29 points – what happens if some of these hypothetical issues actually come home to roost and we find out they’re true?” Graves asked. “I’m not saying all those things are going to happen, but that is sort of the question: If something goes awry on those files, are they steering into the area where they actually are going to risk a legitimacy crisis with the public?”

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Voter intention across the country

The Conservatives trail the NDP by a wide margin in British Columbia, raking in only 28.6 per cent support in that province, compared to 37.6 per cent for the NDP. And while Alberta remains a stronghold for the Conservatives – they garnered 54.3 per cent support there – there are signs it might be losing newly acquired ground in central Canada.

The Conservatives are in a statistical deadlock with the NDP in Ontario; the parties are sitting at 32.4 per cent and 32.8 per cent, respectively.

Further east, the NDP is also ahead of the Conservatives. In Quebec, where the NDP picked up 59 seats in the last federal election, it holds a considerable lead over the other federal parties. Just over a third of Quebecers said they would vote NDP, while only 11.5 per cent there supported the Conservatives, and 17.3 per cent said they would vote Liberal.

The margins are not quite as big in Atlantic Canada, but again, the NDP would take a third of the votes in that region as well, with the Conservatives garnering 29.5 per cent, and the Liberals 17.8.

Those regional breakdowns don’t bode well for the government, Graves said.

“I mean, they’ve got some traditional strengths out West, but there are very few other places that look very solid for them,” he said. “Right now, those numbers undoubtedly would see them in opposition, and maybe not even a particularly strong opposition, depending on where the splits were.”

And while the Conservatives still hold on to 40.4 per cent of support from those Canadians over 65 years of age, they in a tie with the NDP among Canadians aged 45-65 at 30.8 per cent, and well back among those aged 25-44. In that final age bracket, the Conservatives could only muster 24.3 per cent support, while the NDP took 35.7 per cent.

However, as much as the Conservatives are only holding ground with Canadian seniors, Graves said that might not be such a bad thing.

“Despite all the doom and gloom for the government, they still have, I think, the strongest most committed constituency,” he said. “Those older people will all vote, and those younger people, a lot of them – in fact most of them – won’t. They’ve got some deep troubles, but they’re certainly able to recover.”

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Green party rise

Among the more notable things the numbers show, Graves said, is the jump in support nationally for the Green party.

Since the May 2011 federal election, EKOS numbers show the Green party has gone from 3.9 per cent support up to 9.5 per cent.

Graves said that could be a reflection of a general “wariness with all the traditional parties,” and that the Greens don’t “carry the same baggage on that.” But, he said, much of it could be due to sole Green MP, Elizabeth May.

“May has been doing a pretty good job, punching above her weight, a single MP and she seems to be getting a fair bit of air time,” Graves said. “That looks to me that it’s being favourably for the public.”

EKOS polled a random sample of 2,049 Canadians between June 21 to 26. The margin of error for the poll is +\- 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.